Themed “This is a Rehearsal” and organized by art and design collective Floating Museum, the fifth Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB 5) sees the biennial as a city-wide collaborative and spontaneous cultural happening; a reflection of the simultaneously banal and grand ambitions that create urbanism every day. “For us, the biennial is a platform for thinking about the way the city produces itself. Today, we are producing the city,” says Andrew Schachman of Floating Museum.
But as citizen-designer-actors took the stage on September 21 to clear their throats and practice their lines, the first views were of a few halting performances wrapped in progressive rhetoric that’s otherwise floating in a void of programming. Whether by improvisation or plan, the phased opening of the 2023 edition of CAB began with a small handful of installations and performances that were most effective when they harkened back to the curatorial aims of the 2021 biennial and its focus on community engagement. Attention elsewhere makes it hard to assess what the full opening November 1 will entail. Is this a rehearsal for a rehearsal?
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